


Tenstar

by doodlingNutjob



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Gen, Magical Girls, Superheroes, Tags May Change, this idea is brought to you by 2011 me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 07:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13406325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodlingNutjob/pseuds/doodlingNutjob
Summary: Kiki Caulfield is a rather ordinary 15 year old girl just trying to get through her freshman year of high school. However, the universe has decided that that is not to be...The tale of a young girl who gets superpowers out of the blue and how she deals with it.





	1. Prologue: Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> To everyone who may have been waiting for me to update my Steven Universe fic "Stop and Smell the Roses": Unfortunately, between the show's constant hiatuses and the fact that pretty much the entire premise of the fic has been Jossed into another dimension, I haven't been able to muster the motivation to continue it. Until further notice, it's officially discontinued, sadly.
> 
> To new readers: Welcome! I decided to brush the dust off of an old story I came up with when I was in 7th grade. You can probably still find the discontinued original Tenstar if you look hard enough...but I will say that this current version is pretty much an entirely different animal compared to the original. Only seek out the original if you want your eyes to melt out of your skull. Eep.  
> I originally tried to do a webcomic, which can be found here: https://tenstar-comic.tumblr.com/  
> Ultimately I ran out of steam for a comic, but you might wanna follow that tumblr anyway, since I will likely post illustrations for the story there as it progresses.

Scientists in the Lakewood Observatory were going _nuts_ , and their supervisor wanted to know _why_.

"Sir!" one of them babbled, grabbing his sleeve. "We've just picked up a highly unusual reading from one of our satellites! It appears to be heading right for a rural neighborhood on the edge of town..."

"An unusual meteor, then? I need elaboration," said the supervisor, brushing the excited scientist's hand off of his sleeve. The scientist, fidgeting with her hands, led him over to the nearest monitor, which was displaying assorted data that the satellites, now all trained on the meteor, had managed to pick up.

"According to our data, sir, the meteor has a composition that is not identifiable as a known substance. It also has a most unusual structure, with a symmetrical shape." The supervisor leaned closer, squinting  at the readout.

"Are you trying to tell me..." he began, before getting cut off by the very excited scientist.

"We have reason to believe that this meteor is of artificial construction!" she squealed.

"Bullshit. In all of our years of searching, we've never once found any evidence of extraterrestrial life." He turned to glare at her, feeling mounting frustration at the fact that the observatory was in such a tizzy over such a ludicrous idea.

"Statistically, there has to be _something_ out there," she argued. "And what is to say that we're the first intelligent life to ever evolve? What if we're late to the cosmic party? What if they had the technology to avoid detection?"

"Stop wasting my time," the supervisor grumbled, turning to leave the lab.

 

 

Still the meteor plunged toward the earth, vibrating wildly inside as it heated up to white hot temperatures, tearing through the atmosphere.


	2. Kiki Caulfield

_Fourteen Hours Earlier_

 

 

"Katherine May Caulfield! Get your butt out here this instant!!"

She groaned and swung her feet out of bed, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She stumbled over to the door, opening it to find her mother looking rather unimpressed.

"The bus is going to be here in five minutes," her mother said without preamble, hands on her hips. The sleepy teenager in front of her suddenly looked as if her eyebrows would fly off of her face.

"Oh, _shit!_ " she cried, running back into her room to throw some clothes on in a rush. Within two minutes she was stumbling out of her room, throwing her backpack on as she ran. "Byemomseeyoulater!"

Her mother crossed her arms, then let out a little chuckle. "Bye, Kiki."

 

Kiki let out a rather large sigh as she made it to the bus stop, panting and sweating, the instant that the bus departed. Her mother would already be leaving for work, which meant...

She'd have to call in a ride from a neighbor. She really didn't want to be a bother, but if she tried to walk to school now, she'd definitely be catastrophically late to school. Sighing, she pulled out her old flip phone and pulled up the number she needed. The call went through two rings before Kiki's last hope picked up.

"Hey, Kiki. I gotta say, I've never gotten a call from you this early in the morning. What's up with that?" Well, now Kiki felt bad. The girl on the other end sounded groggy, like she just woke up.

"Hi, Melissa. Well, I, uh, got a favor to ask of you, if it's not too much trouble," Kiki stammered, nibbling her lip. "I overslept and missed the bus, and I really need a ride to get to school on time. Can you drive me? Pretty please? With a che-"

Melissa cut off her increasingly desperate pleas with a yawn. "Yeah, no biggie, Kiki. Why don't you chill a bit and get comfy at the bus stop? I'll just grab ya there."

Kiki felt a wave of relief wash over her...or maybe she was finally starting to cool off after running through the brisk early morning air. "Thank you so so much, Melissa. I'll see you in a few minutes!"

"You're welcome," Melissa mumbled before hanging up.

Melissa Donner and her family lived on the same street, so whenever there was a neighborhood get together they always saw each other. Melissa was friendly enough, and had become a sort of big sister figure to Kiki over the past several years. She was graduating this year, and had her own car that was coming extremely in handy for Kiki this morning.

Kiki stood at the corner and tapped her foot restlessly for about ten more minutes before Melissa pulled up in her old black sedan, rolling down her window and grinning. "Your ride has arrived."

Kiki threw open the door, chucking her backpack in before flopping into the seat. "I really can't thank you enough, Mel," she breathed, giving the older girl a grateful smile.

"Don't mention it," she said with a hand wave before putting her car back in drive. "Next stop: scenic Lakewood High!"

Kiki let out a snort as Melissa pulled away from the curb.

 

"Scenic," after all, was not the word Kiki would have used to describe Lakewood High School.

She'd personally go with something more along the lines of "drab." Or "miserable." The building was definitely nothing to write home about, being a simple gray affair with the name of the school spelled out in big black letters above the front doors. The steps leading up to said doors were caked in black spots from old gum that nobody had bothered to pick up. That, or cleanup simply wasn't in the budget. When she pondered it, Kiki figured it was a little of both. Melissa drove around the side of the school building to cruise the student parking lot for a space. To Kiki's immense relief, there were about ten minutes left before class.

"Here we are," Melissa declared as she slid into a space and parked. Kiki burst into exaggerated applause and grinned at her.

"Okay, that's enough," Melissa laughed, punching her arm lightly before pulling out her key and opening the door. She waited for Kiki to exit the vehicle, then locked the doors. Melissa waved, then turned to walk off to her own class. The moment of levity over, Kiki sighed and began the trek to the front doors.

Once she was inside the building, she had to shove her way through dense crowds of kids all loitering in front of their still-locked classrooms. She _really_ didn't appreciate that they felt the need to stand smack in the middle of the hallway. She was small and weak and having to elbow her way through a hallway wasn't really her favorite way to start the school day. She was just thankful that she didn't have to go to her locker this morning; she had all the books she'd need for her first few classes already on her person. She finally made it to her first period English class right as the door swung open, and she followed the horde of classmates inside before finding her seat.

"Cutting it close, Kooky?" said a voice next to her. Kiki turned and gave the source, a mousy-haired boy, a withering look.

"Must you keep calling me that, Marty?" she groaned, bending down to pull out her book and notes. "It makes me sound stupid."

Marty shrugged, shit-eating grin never leaving his face. "Eh, if the shoe fits, wear it, Kooky. You're not stupid but you're definitely a weirdo."

If Marty wasn't in pretty much every single one of her classes, Kiki definitely wouldn't hang out with him as much as she did. He was an infuriating little shit a lot of the time...but he was an infuriating little shit who actively talked to her. She had to take what she could get. "For the record? I know for a fact plenty of other girls in this school love comic books!" 

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure you're the only one that's a walking encyclopedia of _Nightowl_ trivia, with a mint condition copy of the first issue," he retorted, not missing a beat.

"You say that like it's a bad thing, Marty."

"I said no such thing!" Marty gasped, hand flying to his chest in mock dismay. "I just said you're the only one, so by definition you are in fact a weirdo, Kooky!"

Kiki rolled her eyes, smiling. "Okay, I'll give you this one, I suppose. I thought I was gonna have to check you for lying about your undying love of _Nightowl_."

Marty might have made another comment if not for their teacher tapping the whiteboard with her pointer to start class. He looked almost disappointed as he opened his book.

 

English was a subject that Kiki could handle, and one she sort of liked.

Unfortunately, second period made her want to cry on a regular basis, and not just because it was one of the few classes she and Marty didn't share.

The main reason she hated it was because it was geometry. She'd always struggled with math, but adding in about fifty billion theorems or whatever made her head spin. She sank into her seat, starting her fifty minute countdown till she could leave.

And then Mr. Brown cleared his throat. "Good morning, class. I finally finished grading your tests from last week, so I'll be handing them out after today's lesson. The average was pretty nice this time around, so you should feel proud!"

Kiki felt her blood run cold. She'd blocked that test from her memory. That horrible, horrible test. And her misery would be delayed by another lesson about solving triangles that would only darken her mood. She wasn't paying attention to what her body was doing as her head slammed into her desk from dismay.

"Katherine? Is there a problem?" the teacher called out, sounding somewhere between concerned and unamused. 

"No, sir," she groaned, sitting up again and rubbing her forehead. The kids next to her were giving her odd looks and she tried to ignore them.

The lesson dragged on and on, until five minutes before the bell Mr. Brown started handing back the graded tests. When hers landed on her desk facedown, Kiki hardly dared to look at it. Her breath caught when he paused next to her desk.

"Can you come talk to me during break, Katherine?" he said quietly.

Kiki knew her test would have a big ugly red "F" on it before she even turned it over, just from his tone of voice alone. She didn't even know it was possible to sink even lower in her chair than she had already. The bell rang, and Kiki waited for all of her classmates to stream outside before walking to the teacher's desk.

"I'm very concerned about your grades, Katherine," he began, folding his hands earnestly on his desk. "You've failed the past several tests, and at the rate you're going I fear that you might not be able to pass the class. There's still half of the semester left, so it is possible...but you'll have to work very hard at it."

Kiki swallowed and nodded. Her mother might just kill her when she brought this test home. She'd had a nice fifteen years around the sun.

"I heavily recommend that you attend regular tutoring in the library, and that you study as much as you can," he continued. "I'd really rather see you pass than see you fail, all right? Don't be afraid to ask me for help if you need it."

"Yes, sir," she forced out, a lump lodged in her throat.

"You can go. Have a nice day," Mr. Brown said, pulling out more papers from another class that needed grading.

She stumbled out into the hallway as the five minute bell for the next class rang. Marty was already there waiting for her, looking concerned the instant he laid eyes on her.

"Holy test grades, Nightowl!" he cried, exaggerating his words for a moment before quieting down. "So, how bad was it?"

"Bad," she whimpered, hands shaking. Marty gave her head a sympathetic pat.

"Eh, I'm sure you'll kill it next time. In the meantime, you gotta help me keep all the countries in World War II straight!"

"We're studying World War I right now, genius," she said with a small laugh.

"Exactly! I'm helpless! Save me from myself, Kooky!"

"Mission accepted!" She was genuinely smiling now.

 

History and biology went by rather uneventfully, and she and Marty had their usual lunchtime banter (today's topic: would Nightowl be able to defeat Ultraman in hand to hand combat?) before heading off to PE together.

PE was the other class that really peeved her. Coach Holtmann, as usual, looked ready to hunt small rodents with his bare hands when Kiki stepped out of the girls' locker room in uniform. She went and stood on her attendance number with a small sigh. She waved to Marty as he walked past her to his own number, then stiffened as Coach Holtmann spoke up.

"Today we're doing a mile run! Remember, the faster your time, the higher your grade! Now follow me to the track!" He started walking without any other warning, and Kiki fell into step next to Marty. She did envy her friend one major thing: he didn't look it, but he was weirdly athletic. In a few minutes he was about to leave her in the dust.

"You actually gonna make it in before he calls time today?" he said snidely, earning himself an elbow in the side.

"You're such an asshole," she muttered. "You gonna ditch me again today?"

"Maybe," he said with a shrug and a grin. "Depends on if you're a slowpoke again."

They lined up with the other kids at the track's starting line as Coach Holtmann pulled out his stopwatch. "Three...two...one...go!!"

The class stampeded out of the gates, and Kiki jogged slowly, letting Marty sprint away towards the head of the crowd. She already knew where she stood in this class, and her mother didn't particularly care about her PE grade...

It'd just be nice to maybe earn some respect from Coach and get Marty to stop giving her shit. Just once.

 

She just had to slog through Spanish before she was allowed to ride the bus home, sitting next to Marty as always. They continued the Nightowl v. Ultraman debate until he got off at his stop. Then she rode the rest of the way home alone.

Thankfully for her, her mother didn't get home for about another three hours, so that left her three hours to enjoy her remaining time on Earth. She dragged her feet to her room, then threw down her backpack and pulled out some of her homework. Might as well make herself look good by getting her homework done before Mom got home.

 

Three hours and several assignments later, Kiki felt her blood running cold as she closed her biology textbook and heard a key turning in the door. Her time was up. She pulled out her test and held it behind her back as she slowly, hesitantly made her way towards the door.

"Hi, Mom. How was work today?" Kiki asked innocently, heart racing.

"Busy as always, sweetie," she said with a sigh, taking off her coat. "How was school?"

"About that..." Kiki said, swallowing hard. Mom gave her a quizzical look as she slowly pulled the test out from behind her back with shaking hands. "W-we got our math tests back."

Mom was instantly frowning in concern, and took the test to scrutinize it. She sighed and gave her daughter a disappointed look.

"Kiki..." she began, tone stern.

"I already got all my other homework done, Mom!" she said swiftly, holding her hands up in a placating gesture. "We can have dinner together, and then I'm gonna go study my butt off for geometry!"

"Yes...see that you do," Mom said flatly, turning to go walk into the kitchen to get dinner started.

Kiki allowed herself a small sigh and a whimper once Mom was gone.

 

And so she had spent the hours of seven to ten o'clock cramming so much geometry in her head that she thought for sure that she'd explode. She needed to decompress before bed. Badly.

Thankfully her mom was already in bed, which made sneaking out of the house to go relax all the easier. 

She always did find stargazing to be very relaxing, and her house was toward the edge of Lakewood. Her backyard opened up to some very nice hills for stargazing.

She moseyed up to the top of the nearest small hill, then flopped onto her back in the grass. The stars twinkled in welcome as she turned her eyes skyward, letting her thoughts fall silent.

It was always fun to ponder what exactly was out there in deep space. According to her beloved comic books, there were hostile aliens...but it was nice to imagine that maybe there were nice aliens out there too. 

She noted with a bit of surprise that there was a shooting star. She didn't remember reading about any upcoming meteor showers over Lakewood...

But a meteor was a meteor. She made a wish.

She wanted to do good in the world like her hero Nightowl...an ordinary office secretary who used nothing but her wits to bring evildoers to justice in the dark of night. She wanted a chance to maybe prove that she was more than a below-average wallflower.

It couldn't hurt to throw a silly wish at a shooting star.

Then she realized that a bunch of different colored streaks of light were shooting out of the meteor and racing across the sky in all different directions. She counted about eight before a bright white one came streaking towards her. 

"What the hell?!" she cried, scooting back in the grass. As it got closer, she could make out its basic shape. The white wisp had a head, five spikes making its head look somewhat like a star, and two little arms. She rapidly rolled to the side to dodge the incoming creature, then lost her balance and went sprawling on her side. Her eyes grew huge as the wisp loomed over her, glowing brightly.

"Please don't k-kill me," she whimpered, staring into its blank face. Then the creature raised its arms and shut its eyes, looking pensive.

"Oh shit, you don't understand me, do you?!" she cried, terror mounting. This unidentified creature was about to consume her or something, she was sure of it. She sat up as fast as she could to try and get away. "I'M NOT READY TO DIE!"

Heedless of her terror, the wisp suddenly shot forward and flew directly into her chest as if she wasn't made of solid flesh and bone. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed as its tail disappeared into her body. 

Then she felt icy cold shoot through her body, and it was more than a mere fear reaction. She clutched at her head and wailed as she suffered the worst case of brain freeze in her life.

White light flashed at her collarbone, growing increasingly brighter as her blue irises turned to white. The light consumed her, and she could swear that she was suddenly in the middle of a snowstorm, with tiny cold flakes swirling around her body, before condensing and...

The light faded, and Kiki looked down at her new outfit: a white dress and boots, covered in feathers, with a white star necklace around her neck. 

She stared at her shaking hands with their silver bracelets, cold shivers racking her body. Or were they shivers of pure terror? She couldn't tell anymore.

"Wh-what have you d-done to m-me?" she asked of the alien inside her body, teeth chattering.


	3. Snowfall

Kiki was trying _really_ hard not to panic. And failing miserably.

The grass around her feet was frosting over, and her palms were essentially frozen. She could feel all of her blood literally running cold as she stood and shivered on the lonesome hill.

She could be dying or something, and she couldn't even go home. Not like this. What if this was permanent?! She was _screwed_ then.

But then after a few moments the cold started to subside. She was stunned. She felt perfectly fine, and yet she was still in the freaky white outfit from out of nowhere. She stared at her defrosting hands, eyes wide.

"Uhm, alien thing...? What the hell's going on here?" she whispered, curling and uncurling her fingers. As she did so, a little spurt of snowflakes flew up from her fingertips and landed on her face, showing it in cold wetness.

Yet she didn't really feel the "cold" part of it. She watched in silent rapture as her hand movements conjured up more snowflakes that whirled through the air for a moment before melting. She took a step through the grass, the ground under her foot frosting over on contact. Out of curiosity she kept walking, leaving more frosty footprints in her wake. Then she stomped down hard, and a swathe of grass in front of her all turned to ice. She couldn't feel it anymore, but there was a chill in the air. She kept stomping, and created a sort of ice field around her. She was shooting snow from her fingertips and freezing everything over like she had-

"Superpowers?" she breathed, looking at her hand once again as she turned it over, before conjuring more snow and swirling it in the air over her palm with fluid finger movements. Her terror had transformed into wonder. Instead of killing her, the alien wisp thing had given her _superpowers_.

She decided to see what she could do, her brain shifting from alien horror mode to superhero nerd mode. People with ice powers could usually do stuff like...

Concentrating on her vision, she extended her hands and from them shot a wave of cold, forming a wall of solid ice in front of her. Her eyes widened and she let out an excited whoop.

"Holy crap! I HAVE SUPERPOWERS!" she cried, jumping up and down, giddy with newfound excitement. SUPERPOWERS!

Then she heard a faint siren in the distance, and she clenched her jaw a little, the gravity of her new situation sinking in.

"I have superpowers," she said lowly, staring at all the ice around her.

With great power came great responsibility. It was part of why Nightowl disliked Ultraman stepping on her turf. She thought he didn't use his powers to their fullest potential to help people and stop corruption.

Kiki couldn't disappoint her idol Nightowl, however fictional she might be.

Stomping on the ground, Kiki willed a smooth road of ice to form in front of her, shooting off into the distance toward the sound of the siren. She started skating down her icy road as fast as she could go, constantly throwing out her arms and waving them frantically in an effort to not fall on her ass. 

It took her a few minutes, but she got to the crime scene in one piece. She stepped off her icy road cautiously, legs still shaking a little at the trial that was makeshift ice skating. Now that she was back on solid ground, she could take in what was happening.

Err, what _was_ happening before she showed up.

A small bank was getting held up by a small gang of criminals who were all armed and dangerous. They'd been in a bit of a standoff with the police...but both sides were now staring at her in confusion.

"Get back, miss," one of the officers eventually managed. "This is a very dangerous situatio-"

One of the thugs took advantage of the distraction to fire off a shot at the officers. There was yelling and ducking, and thankfully nobody was hurt, but...Kiki couldn't help but swallow hard. She might've gotten in over her head for her first heroic mission.

"P-put your hands up, and nobody gets hurt!" Kiki squeaked, not sounding nearly as intimidating as she'd hoped to be.

A moment of silence, and then the criminals started laughing...till the police started firing back, calling for backup. Kiki hated all the sounds of gunshots, all the destruction unfolding from the impacts of all the bullets.

"FREEZE!" she cried, holding out her hands. The temperature of the air in the area dropped dramatically as a huge wall of ice formed between the two sides.

"What the fuck?!" yelled one of the thugs. 

"I s-said... _freeze!_ " Kiki repeated, turning her attention firmly to the side of the wall where the thugs stood. She held out her hands once more, and the thugs' feet started freezing over, rooting them in place. Immediately all the guns were trained on her.

She swallowed hard, and put up another wall in front of her before the bullets could hit her. The ice was cracking, however.

She had to disable their guns, or their hands. Preferably both. She really didn't need to get riddled with bullet holes tonight. Oh, fuck, that would hurt. 

She really didn't need to start contemplating bullet damage and panicking right now. She needed to focus on neutralizing the threat. That's what Nightowl would do.

She sent out an icy road, then tried her damnedest to skate down it as fast as she could...right towards the criminals.

Lucky for her, she'd noticed that they weren't the sharpest shots. Kind of like the Ship Stormers from Galaxy Wars. A few bullets grazed her arm and it hurt like hell, but she didn't get genuinely shot.

Then she shot out frosty clouds from her hands and within moments the thugs' guns were frozen to their hands and rendered useless. She froze their free hands in blocks of ice as well, for good measure. She let out a shaky yet triumphant laugh as she admired her handiwork. She'd actually neutralized her first evildoers and survived to tell the tale!

She was jolted back to reality by a voice barking at her.

"Who are you, miss?" The officers were approaching from around her big ice wall from earlier, looking cautious. Looking at her like...like she was a threat. Oh, no.

"I'm one of the good guys, I swear! I'm one of you guys!" She threw her hands into the air, showing she had no weapons.

"You ain't gonna freeze us, or nothin'?" demanded one of the other officers, giving her a wary glare. She shook her head slowly, hands up.

"I'm just a teenage girl who happened to become a superhero tonight. I just came here to stop the bad guys. Promise."

"What's your name then, teenage superhero?" said the second officer, still not looking convinced.

"I...uh...I'd rather keep that to myself. It'd be dangerous if word got around about who I was, yeah? People might try to go after my family!"

The first officer actually seemed to be humoring her, to her surprise. "What do we call you then?"

She paused thoughtfully for a moment, then her face lit up. "Call me Snowfall!"

"Thank you for defusing the situation here tonight, Snowfall," said the first officer earnestly, holding out his hand. Awestruck, Kiki slowly reached out and shook it. "Get home safely."

"I will, sir!" she said brightly, giving him a goofy salute before turning and ice skating in the other direction, her work there complete.

"...You actually buying into this bullshit?" the second officer asked incredulously, holstering his gun as backup arrived.

"She's young, and we don't know what she's capable of. You saw that shit. It's best to humor her till we know what we're dealing with." The first officer paused for a moment, scratching his chin. "Besides, you can't deny that she really was a help in tonight's confrontation. She risked herself to help us. Best to keep that kind of power on our side."

"So you're gonna make this Snowfall kid a cadet?" the second asked incredulously.

"I'm not doing anything but being polite to her yet," the first said firmly. "For now Snowfall is to be considered our ally."

"For now," grunted the second.


	4. Snowy

Once the euphoria simmered down and she was back to her icy hill, it hit her.

Her arm hurt like a _bitch_. She lifted her hand from the wound as she stepped back onto solid ground and felt her stomach lurch as she saw all the red smeared across her hand.

And yet...the wounds looked shallower than she remembered during the fight.

"Hey, uh, alien? Did you give me a healing factor too?" she wondered aloud, putting her hand back over her bleeding wounds to hold pressure. "If you did, that's real cool...thanks..."

Of course, the alien couldn't answer her from inside her body. She probably sounded crazy to any potential listeners, talking to an invisible alien...

Right. Alien.

"Can I call you something other than 'alien?' Like uh...Snowy? I'll call you Snowy." Kiki eased herself into a sitting position in the grass, watching it frost over a little where it came into physical contact with her. "What's your deal, Snowy? Do you have any way to talk to me? It'd be even cooler if you could talk to me, buddy."

Kiki suddenly found herself swaying as her vision blacked out for a second. She thought she was passing out from blood loss...

Until the blackness was filled with pinpricks of light rushing past. Stars in the distance, blurring together from the sheer speed. She could feel herself pressed up against a wall in a tight space, as everything went dark around her...then suddenly she was suffocated by a rainbow of colored light, all pressing into her with tangible weight. The lights were moving, and a yellow one turned to stare at her with wide eyes, horns on its head like lightning bolts...

She was weak, so weak...but if she found a suitable vessel, she could be safe, safe from them...

And suddenly she was flying into herself as the pressure all vanished, her shipmates fleeing into the night. She was spreading her energy into herself and bringing a sheer unyielding cold to her new vessel, granting her her powers in exchange for protection. It was hers, as long as she was a vessel...

Besides. They were bonded together now, for better or for worse.

Kiki's vision abruptly returned to normal, and her fingers on her free hand curled into and tightly gripped the grass as she caught her breath. She didn't even realize she'd been breathing that shallowly during her out of body experience.

"Wha...was that you, Snowy?" she finally managed. "Wait...if your only way of answering is with freaky visions, don't do that again."

There was a tense silence for several moments, then Kiki let out a shaky sigh. She was playing host to a bonafide alien that was trying to get away from _something_ and being a host gave her access to superpowers in exchange.

And she had a really bad feeling that she didn't want to take her fancy new necklace off. It had formed first when Snowy had made her its host, and she had a gut feeling that it was a physical representation of their bond. The visions had implied that if something happened to Snowy, she'd go down with it too.

They'd also implied that the power was completely hers to control...

She closed her eyes and willed herself to revert back to normal, to return to her civilian self again...

There was a white flash, and suddenly she was back in her hoodie and jeans. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger and noted with satisfaction that it had changed back from white to its natural brown color. The only thing different, as far as she could tell, was her new white star necklace.

That, and the blood on her sleeve. That hadn't been there when she sneaked out earlier. Crap, she hadn't properly healed. She rolled up her sleeve to check and...

Oh. It was almost healed. Looked more like a really bad cat scratch or something than a grazing from a bullet. She could bullshit her way out of that, probably. She'd wash her hoodie and bandage the wound well and nobody could tell. She could even wear sweats in PE, spring weather be damned. She stood up and took a tentative few steps, then began the walk back home. Thankfully Mom slept like a rock...

Especially when she got back in the house and saw that it was midnight already. How time flew when one was getting turned into an alien vessel and becoming a superhero.

She stepped into the bathroom to begin treating her wound, closing the door and turning on the light.

That is when she made eye contact with her reflection and stifled a dismayed noise.

The irises of her eyes were still as white as snow, even as a civilian.

People were going to notice that.

She racked her brain for a moment, trying to come up with a valid excuse for in the morning. 

Oh! She snapped her fingers, face brightening into a smile. She could chalk her new eye color up to fancy lenses that she bought online and got in the mail today. She thought it'd be a fun fashion statement! For once she was grateful that most people at school already thought she was a weirdo. The crazy contacts wouldn't strike anyone as being out of character! The perfect cover story.

And as for Mom...she could say that maybe one of Marty's neighbors had spare freaky contacts and Marty was trying to pawn them off and she took them. Yes, she'd go with that.

She let out a breath as she got to work on treating her wound so she could go the fuck to bed and get tomorrow's cover storytelling over with sooner.


End file.
